A material handling system is a system in which materials are handled by transporting them in accordance with a determined destination and which may comprise sorting such materials in accordance with such destinations. It is to be understood that the materials handled in the examples herein are items such as postal parcels or airport baggage and similar goods of various sizes and shapes.
These materials are transported on the material handling system, such as on a tilt tray of a tilt tray sorter where tiltable trays are comprised in a closed loop sorter with a closed loop chain running in a track for handling the materials. Alternatively the materials are as an example moved on totes, such as totes moved by a driven belt or a roller in various other types of material handling systems. Still further the materials may be moved by a force for moving the materials being applied directly to a surface of the materials.
The choice of material handling system type or a choice of a combination of several of the mentioned types or other similar non-mentioned types is dependent on the types of material to be handled, their size, weight etc as well as the material handling capacity needed at a given material handling site.
There are numerous types of sites with material handling systems of the mentioned types, and particular examples are postal package hubs, mail order distribution centres and airports.
Independent of the type of site or the type(s) of material handling equipment and systems used, the material handling systems usually require at least some preventive maintenance. In some cases components also need to be exchanged immediately due to sudden unforeseen work load or many years of extensive use and thereby many years of wear and tear.
Some material handling systems in sites such as postal hubs and airports may include several hundred meters or even several kilometers of tracks of material handling lines, such as transportation lines or materials handling lines or loops for sorting of the materials according to their destination.
Thus, servicing such systems and assuring the availability of such systems, which may be used for material handling 20 hours or more per day, more or less every day of the year may require several persons for carrying out service tasks, such as inspection of the systems, carrying out preventive maintenance or exchanging worn out components.
Still further and at some critical periods of the day, even a minimum of unavailability of the systems may incur flights getting postponed etc, or parcels not reaching their destination on time, it is of outmost importance that the systems have the optimum availability and therefore if maintenance must be carried out at a certain moment or breakage should occur, that the systems are maintained or repaired as swift possible.
The known devices and methods used for servicing such material handling systems are quite simple and include a service person walking on site and performing inspection, preventive maintenance, maintenance or repair with various hand tools which are brought to a service location where service is to be provided.
The service person usually performs the service task to be performed, e.g. by climbing a ladder to get near the material handling track and/or components thereof and while being on this ladder, or while being positioned on other at least partly suitable similar types of equipment.
An example of a type of preventive maintenance which is likely to be performed is cleaning of components of one or more tracks or components comprised in or on or adjacent to the track, e.g. by cleaning them with a vacuum cleaner. Often, preventive maintenance also includes visual inspection of the systems and components thereof.
Material handling tracks are often provided at an elevated height above ground level in a building in which the tracks are present. In this way access can be provided underneath the tracks for other material handling tracks, personnel, trucks, or similar powered or unpowered, manned or unmanned vehicles.
The tracks may be difficult to access due to platforms for support of various types of equipment, or due to destinations lines, called chutes, or other types of equipment, which, seen from a service point of view are obstacles, although important and typical in material handling sites.
Thus preventive maintenance, maintenance or repair or even simple inspection of material handling systems have proven difficult and time consuming.
Still further, in some cases the conditions on site, e.g. in combination with the enthusiasm of service personnel to keep the highest availability of the system, have been known to make it challenging, or even impossible, to carry out service or inspection tasks, with known devices and methods, while assuring a personnel safety which is satisfactory.
Alternatively, and as an example, maintenance or preventive maintenance is not carried out or not carried out often enough, in view of the maintenance schedules provided, due to the lack of safety in carrying out the maintenance or due to the hassle of carrying out service in a safe manner. As a possible consequence of this, a loss of availability occurs.
Thus, the inventors of the present invention have appreciated that an improved device for maintaining and method of maintaining a material handling system, i.e. servicing and/or providing inspection of the material handling system is of benefit, and have in consequence devised the present invention.